Mindfulness has turned into a very popular, "organic" over used word in today's society, one that seems to be discussed about like an elusive fairytale character. Something you always hear about and social media keeps telling you to be "mindful" but is it actually possible to catch a bit of this elusive character and actually benefit from it? It is all well and good to post about it, talk about it amongst friends but what the F##k does it mean?
Bear with me!
I am apart of a facebook group that is all things mindfulness and meditation (just to be clear I thrive off these topics, I love being mindful myself) I don't interact or engage on the particular page but I do open it up every now and then to have a look. The other day I opened it out of sheer interest of I wonder what they are discussing. And I was meant to see this in-particular post and it was about a girl asking what are the best ways to meditate. Asking for music choices, length of meditation, specific times of the day that is best and so on. What I saw next I think was written by my "spirit animal" or my "soul sister" (mind you the response was from a male which i love more) the 38th comment was......."You are trying too hard!"
BAM!! Hello world, we are all trying too hard. Meditation and mindfulness varies to the individual. Each practice or action of mindfulness is unique to the person doing it. It doesn't matter what you wear, where you meditate, what you listen too or how long you do it for the whole point of it all is that YOU DO IT! We are so caught up in a world of rules and regulations always thinking that it has to be done a certain way. The way our parents did it or the way the "cool kid" did in high school. NO! The point is that you put some time in your busy day aside for yourself, you take 5mins to breathe. Put a set of headphones in your ears, type into youtube 'mindful meditation' and go for it. You can be on a bus, train god you could be sitting in your doctors waiting room going in for a pap smear and feeling nervous. JUST DO IT. Famous words from Dan Wieden, founder of NIKE.
If we really break down the benefits of mindfulness, meditation and even self love it comes back to building a new habit. A positive habit at that. Once you do schedule that 5min meditation into your 24hrs what it does is it shows you, you can do it. Give back to yourself which in turn will help you give back to others. The one's you love, you'r colleagues, you'r community your employees. Once you have incorporated a new habit that helps you out it proves to yourself that you can do it. You go from doing a 5min meditation so that opens you up to doing a 20min workout. It may be the following week you think to yourself "Hmm I feel pretty good, I am going to start eating better!"
You see where I am going with this right? One small thing can lead to something really BIG. So....stop overthinking it and start. Start right now. Shut down your laptop and go for a walk in your lunch break. Put your phone down and do ten big, deep breathes. Breathe's that come up from your belly not from your chest.
It's the 1% rule. Do something today that will make your life that 1% better and then stay consistent. Something so small can have a huge impact on your life. When you compound 1% over a year you'll be 365% a better person by the end of the year.
So stop overthinking it and dive in.
Coach B x
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